Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Engagement with India

I am in India this week. I am here for a number of reasons. On Sunday I took part in the Australian Indian Vice Chancellors Workshop. The senior university executives present discussed ways to better foster engagement between our two countries.

Today (Monday) I was part of the inaugural Australia India Education Council AIEC Our Minister for Tertiary Education Chris Evans attended this meeting along with the Indian Minister for Human resource Development Shri Kapil Sibal. The meeting covered skills development as well as higher education.

The Council discussed how we could work more closely together. One of the projects adopted by the Council was improving student mobility through amongst other things the development of a credit transfer data base. I have been chosen as the Australian lead for this project. I am looking forward to working with colleagues from Australia and India on this project.

I have been looking for ways to further our engagement agenda in India. We have many Indian students and staff and I want to look for ways to engage with Indian communities. On Saturday I think I found a great way of doing this.

I spend the day with an organization called Salaam Baalak .This is an organization that takes street children off the streets of Delhi, gives them a home and an education. I took a tour round the back streets of Delhi with a former street child. I also visited a couple of their children homes.

I am going to meet with the trust later in the week to look at ways in which the University can engage with this fantastic organization. Watch this space!

5 comments:

Deb Burton
said...

Hi Scott,

I look forward to hearing more about the potential for involvement with the Salaam Baalak organisation. It could provide a great opportunity for internationalisation of our student experiences via professional placement opportunities. It also allows everyone the opportunity, if they want to take it, to make a difference to the lives of indian street children while enriching their own lives. Sounds like it was a very productive visit.

Dear ScottAs a social worker I would be keen to support connections made between Salaam Baalak organisation and the broader social work and welfare community. Social work is committed to working to address the global impacts of social issues and promoting social justice and equity. There is so much we could be learning from these experiences and organisations. Look forward to hearing more.

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